Timeless classics and modern masterpieces that challenge, inspire, and leave a lasting impact. Ideal for thought-provoking discussions.
Absalom, Absalom!
William Faulkner, 1936
313 pp.
March 2007
This is a spellbinding book, a sort of mystery story, in which we know who committed the crime but not why.
Faulkner takes a young man's murder and around that single event constructs an entire history of a southern aristocratic family. In many ways it is the history of the South itself.
Absalom, Absalom!
William Faulkner, 1936
313 pp.
February 2009
This is the ultimate book of memory—a family history that tries to piece together the past and come to grips with the present. But memory in this case gets filtered through various characters...so we're never ultimately sure what we get—even though we may think we have it all.
Absalomis the story of Thomas Sutpen, who in 1833 strives to create a dynasty out of a swamp, and who ultimately self-destructs. The story opens years later as old Miss Rosa Coldfield first tells the story of the Sutpen family tragedy to young Quentin Compson.
Advise and Consent
Allen Drury, 1959
638 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
September, 2013
Written over 50 years ago, Advise and Consent still remains America's best political novel. It is politics in the raw—an unappetizing mix of barter, bribery, even blackmail—all served up as a part of the democratic process.
What makes the story not only palatable but absolutely delicious is the depth of Drury's characters and the fact that he makes us privy to the reasoning and pressures behind their decisions. Drury does the impossible: he makes his politicans sympathetic, even admirable.
The Age of Innocence
Edith Wharton, 1920
~ 300 pp. (varies by publisher)
September 2011
Forbidden love has always found literary expression—as far back as Tristan and Isolde, right up to the present day's Twilight series.
We're drawn to these stories because of the exquisite tension between desire and restraint. That tension mirrors our own and so, when splashed across a huge fictional canvass, our own lives feel enlarged. It's as if we, ourselves, have been part of a grander story. Edith Wharton's novel of forbidden love does just that for us.
The Age of Innocence
Edith Wharton, 1920
~ 300 pp. (varies by publisher)
September 2011
Forbidden love has always found literary expression—as far back as Tristan and Isolde, right up to the present day's Twilight series.
We're drawn to these stories because of the exquisite tension between desire and restraint. That tension mirrors our own and so, when splashed across a huge fictional canvass, our own lives feel enlarged. It's as if we, ourselves, have been part of a grander story. Edith Wharton's novel of forbidden love does just that for us.
All the Pretty Horses
Cormac McCarthy, 1992
301 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
March 2015
Steeped in mythology—and at the same time a myth-buster—All the Pretty Horses has become a modern classic. As much a hero's journey as any in ancient mythology, it undermines the very myth this country tells itself about the great American West.
That old West is gone, McCarthy seems to be saying, and with it the ideals of cowboy chivalry—basic goodness, an overarchng sense of justice, and the freedom of self-determination. Even the vast, wide open spaces have been fenced in and oil-rigged off.
But young John Grady Cole doesn't know that yet—or won't accept it. And he pursues his dreams to replace what's been taken from him.
In progress . . .
See our Reading Guide for All the Pretty Horses.
And Then There Were None
Agatha Christie, 1939
320 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
February, 2013
Agatha Christie is the doyenne of murder mysteries—not because she was a prose stylist (she wasn't) nor because she was prolific (though she was). Her staying power is due to the sheer inventiveness of her stories and tight structure of her plots—plots that surprise, even though the clues have been there all along. For nearly a century, mystery writers have marveled at her technique.
Her classic And Then There Were None remains Christie's best selling novel—and the top-selling mystery of all time. It's a bone-chilling, deadly story.
Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy, 1877
838 pp.
April 2008
Powerful, tragic (you know what happens, right?), and one of the greatest reads in all of literature.
Outwardly, Anna Karenina is the story of a woman struggling to break free of one web—marriage—only to find herself entrapped in a different web. The latter, more pernicious, is the futility of life centered on self. In a final, brilliant interior monologue, Anna realizes she cannot escape her own self.
Arrowsmith
Sinclair Lewis, 1925
pp. 480
November 2010
Sinclair Lewis is best known for Babbitt, a novel that earned him a fortune and inspired a new word in the English language: "babbitt"—someone entirely conventional, self-satisfied, and materialistic.
But it was Arrowsmith that earned Lewis the Pulitizer Prize. Though written in plain, unadorned prose (Lewis is no great sytlist), it's an ambitious story—a near-epic that traces the development of a young doctor bursting with idealism. And like all epic heroes, ours falls prey to despair and temptation, occasionally veering off into the wilderness.
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin, 1771-1790
150 pp. (varies by publisher)
February 2010
All the bio-pics you've ever seen from Hollywood—Walk the Line, Ray, Man On the Moon? Well, you can thank Ben Franklin—he invented the format, along with the Franklin stove, bifocals, and the lightning rod.
You know the pattern—the rise from obscure beginnings, through hard work and adversity, to ultimate success. Horatio Alger's rags-to-riches? Alger followed the narrative arc laid out by Franklin. Not only is Franklin himself an American original, so is his autobiography.
Bartleby the Scrivener
Herman Melville, 1853
~50 pp.
July 2009
True story: a full-fledged English professor once told me the biggest mistake Herman Melville made when writing "Bartleby the Scrivener" was to write anything after the title. It's not much of a recommendation.
But I've always loved the story—and my students, if not exactly falling in love with "Bartleby," learned to appreciate it and the lively discussions it inspired.
Beloved
Toni Morrison, 1987
316 pp.
March 2008
This book is too recent to have stood the "Test of Time" of the great classics. But it will. Toni Morrison is a Nobel Prize winner, and Beloved is her crowning achievement—so this work well deserves its place in the pantheon of enduring Literature.
Possibly the most powerful and imaginative rendering of slavery we have, Beloved confronts the horror of both its practice and legacy.
The Call of the Wild and White Fang
Jack London, 1903, 1906
304 pp.
March 2009
If you love dogs, really love dogs, you'll find Jack London's two novellas terrific reads. London tells both stories from the point of view of the dog (or wolfdog), and strangely enough it works...so well that it's hard to put the either book down.
London can be raw, evoking Tennyson's "nature, red in tooth and claw" and evolution's brutal survival of the fittest. The dogs in both stories undergo cruelty by humans and rival dogs, violence London doesn't shy away from describing. Yet both fight ferociously to gain mastery over their rivals. It's a ferocity and dominance London openly celebrates as a reflection of primitive strength and will.
Catch-22
Joseph Heller, 1961
544 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
January, 2015
Catch-22—with its wild, dark comedic view of war, power, greed, and corruption—is one of the great works of the 20th century. Fifty years ago, the title itself landed in the popular lexicon, referring to a logical trap from which there's no way out: You must do A before you can do B, but there's no way to do A without first doing B. Tah-dah...you're stuck.
Like the twisted logic the title refers to, reading the book creates its own sense of absurdity. You love it, yet you don't. You find it hilarious yet horrifying. You end on a sense of hope but also despair. By the end, readers are left dangling—like the iconic figure on its cover.
Conspiracy
Anthony Summers, 1980
640 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
October, 2013
For those who love murder mysteries, Conspiracy is one of the all-time greats. It's the unsolved story of who killed President John F. Kennedy—and it is not a work of fiction.
I first learned of Conspiracy over 30 years ago in 1980. Robert MacNeil, then co-anchor of the PBS news show, was so shaken after reading it that he devoted an entire news program to its contents—an unheard of precedent. I happened to be watching that evening.
Cry, the Beloved Country
Alan Paton, 1948
320 pp.
December 2008
Who hasn't read this, years ago as a school assignment? Believe me, it's worth another read—in fact, I'd forgotten how much I loved this book.
Beloved Countrytells the story of Stephen Kumalo, a black minister in South Africa, who tries to save his sister from prostitution, his son from a murder charge, and his tribe from disintegration.
A Dance to the Music of Time
Anthony Powell, 1951-1975
214, 724, 736, 804 pp. (vols. I-IV)
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
February 2007
This is an overlooked treasure. In fact, it's hard to understand why Anthony Powell's magnificent opus isn't on the tip of everyone's tongue.
Critics and readers agree that Powell, who died in 2000, was one of the finest—and most readable—writers of the English novel. Actually, the work is 12 novels (called a "duodecalogy"... sounds like an ulcer) divided into 4 volumes or "movements."
David Copperfield
Charles Dickens, 1850
700-800 pp. (varies by publisher)
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
January, 2014
Dickens is wordy—that we know. Yet to read him is to revel in the abundance of the English language. Then there's the length and pacing: plotlines piling up one after another after another, propelling us forward until at last, nearly done in, we reach the end!
And finally—Dickens is funny, very funny. As dire as things get for little Davey Copperfield, it's impossible not to guffaw at the characters and many turns of phrase that flow from the author's gift for wordplay. All of it makes this work one of the most extraordinary, most exuberant reads of all time. It's pure joy.
Death of a Salesman
Arthur Miller, 1949
pp. 144
January 2012
Long considered a defining drama of American theater, Death of a Salesman is typically seen as a tragedy of the common man. The focus is on Willy Loman, a man caught up in the calculating world of commerce—a sphere that strips away human dignity.
Yet the more I've read the play, seen it performed, and taught it to students, the more I see it as the story of Willy's son, Biff, and his struggle to achieve manhood. For me, the story centers on Biff as much as Willy.
A Doll's House
Henrik Ibsen, 1879
80 pp. (varies)
May 2008
Talk about theatrics—or drama queens—Nora Helmer is the real thing, bless her heart.
Nora's slammed door at the end of Ibsen's play became known as the "slam heard around the world"—affronting Victorian values and igniting suffragette hopes everywhere. It signaled a revolution in the Western World and eventually led to the female vote.
Dracula
Bram Stoker, 1897
300-400 pp. (varies by publisher)
October 2011
Dracula is such a ripping good tale it makes one wonder: if it hadn't been for Bram Stoker, would there ever have been a vampire craze? We're still in the midst of that craze—more than 100 years later.
Stoker didn't invent vampires—they're part of ancient folk lore—nor did he invent the literary genre. But his 1897 Dracula has continued to spawn countless books, films, TV shows, paintings, video games, and silly costumes. It's the genre itself that's proved to be Undead.
Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War
Robert M. Gates, 2013
640 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
March, 2014
"One damn thing after another" is the way Robert M. Gates described a typical day at the helm of Defense. Being secretary was a job he didn't want and one he didn't like once he got there, but his love for the soldiers, and sense of commitment to them, trumped any personal desire.
That love, at times personal and nearly obsessive, served as the overarching theme of Gates's tenure at Defense and also of his memoir. In reading his 640-page blow-by-blow "report," we can only be grateful that someone—and, in this case that someone was at the very top—paid such close attention to the needs of the "kids" on the front lines.
Emma
Jane Austen, 1815
560 pp.
January 2007
Start the new year off with a dance! A brilliant, complex dance—with skip-steps, turns, and sashays. Emma is Austen’s masterpiece, a story in which triple strands of plot bob and weave in and around one another, and Austen never misses a step.
As Austen herself admitted, Emma Woodhouse is a difficult heroine because she’s not particularly likeable.
Far From the Madding Crowd
Thomas Hardy, 1874
512 pp.
January 2008
Hardy's rep as a writer is one who plumbs the depths—and what he finds beneath the surface is often grim. Not so with Madding Crowd, an earlier novel and joyful celebration of England's pastoral life.
It's a great story, with two enduring...and endearing...heroes: Bathsheba Everdene and Gabriel Oak (you can have fun just sussing out the symbolic allusions of those names).
The Feminine Mystique
Betty Friedan, 1963
382 pp.
April 2009
Although too small to read, here's what the fine print at the bottom of the book cover (on the left) says:
Changed the world so comprehensively that it's hard to remember how much change was called for. —New York Times
It's hard to imagine that any single work could have the seismic impact this one did—especially one written by a women many considered an anathema: angry, strident and abrasive. Friedan, to say nothing of her book, was a lightening rod for controversy.
The Good Soldier
Ford Madox Ford, 1915
288 pp.
December 2006
This is a tale to make your head spin—and to keep you turning pages while wondering how the narrator could be such a dupe.
Yet that's the pleasure. The Good Soldier is a story of two couples: the wife of one having an affair with the husband of the other, and a narrator—the cuckholded husband—completely in the dark.
The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck, 1939
446 pp.
July 2008
It's hard to imagine that a book set during the dust-bowl and great-depression, about a migrant farm family beset with poverty and tragedy (grim subjects at best) would have much appeal.
But The Grapes of Wrath is one of America's most beloved works—and a perennial book club favorite. It's simply a beautiful book.
The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of
the Building the Brooklyn Bridge
David McCullough, 1972
562 pp.
February 2011
After having read his book years ago, David McCullough made a believer of me. To this day I believe richly told narrative histories are some of the best reads ever—even one about engineering and construction. And I'm a girl.
Of course, we're talking about building the Brooklyn Bridge—one of the earliest, and still one of the most beautiful, span bridges in the world. As the book's title says, it's a "great" bridge. It is, and this is a great story.
Great Expectations
Charles Dickens, 1860
560 pp.
November 2006
Poor boy. With a name like Pip, no wonder this novel's hero dreams of grandiosity.
The title refers to the large inheritance a wealthy young man expects to receive one day, ensuring a life of gentlemanly leisure. But Pip hails from the lower classes so has no such "expectations"— until one day, one mysteriously drops into his lap.
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
143 pp.
January 2009
Confession time. I don't really like The Great Gatsby. But I think I'm alone in the universe on this—and it's for that reason that I'm recommending it as this month's Great Work.
Critics have long considered The Great Gatsby one of the quintessential American novels because it is bound up in the uniquely American myth of self-identity.
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925
143 pp.
January 2009
Confession time. I don't really like The Great Gatsby. But I think I'm alone in the universe on this, which is why I'm recommending this month.
This review comes on the heels of Baz Luhrmann's 2013 film adaptation, a new biographical novel of Zelda, and a recently issued volume of Fitzgerald's famous flapper stories. Finally, I recommend Gatsby because critics have long considered it one of the quintessential American novels—a story bound up in the uniquely American myth of self-creation.
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
William Shakespeare, 1603 (First Quarto)
~150-160 pp. (varies by publisher)
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
September 2012
Hamlet is a difficult read, no getting around it. Yet it's the most thrilling drama in all of Shakespeare—or, as some believe, in all of literature. It is the story of a prince robbed of a father and of his rightful seat on the throne of Denmark.
Love, revenge, betrayal, intrigue at home and abroad—and the most brilliantly complex character in all of literature—comprise the story. Add some of the most dazzling language ever written...and there you have Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad, 1899
160 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
June, 2012
Gandhi was asked once what he thought of Western civilization. "It would be a good idea," he quipped. That exchange is very much at the heart of Heart of Darkness, a novel that in many ways was ahead of its time.
Conrad wrote his novel at the height of European colonialism, a system he witnessed in much of its gory brutality. Yet he was also writing for a British audience, which believed that bringing civilization to "untamed" lands was a sacred imperative.
The House of Mirth
Edith Wharton,
274 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
May 2013
Fifteen years before her Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel, The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton already had her sights trained on New York's gilded-age society. That earlier work is The House of Mirth, a devastating portrait, far crueler and more predatory than anything in her later book.
And in Lily Bart, Wharton has given us one of literature's enduring heroines. Lily, with her remarkable beauty and innate charm, captivates readers in the same way she captivates the characters within the novel.
Howards End
E. M. Forster, 1910
355 pp.
September 2007
It took the lushly produced Merchant-Ivory* films to springboard E.M. Forster into a literary household name. Before that, he occupied a well-regarded but quiet niche in the pantheon of English authors.
We appreciate Forster because he tells such darn good stories while tackling serious social issues, primarily England's rigid class system, colonialism, homosexuality—and, always-always, hypocrisy.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain, 1885
July 2007
Scholars have long considered Huck Finn one of the Great American Novels (alongside Moby-Dick and The Scarlet Letter).
It's a ripping good “escape story”—a young boy and run-away slave make their way by raft down the Mississippi toward freedom. Along the way they meet up with adventure and an array of flamboyant characters, mostly shady but a few honest.
The Iliad
Homer; Robert Fagels, trans., 1990
576 pp.
August 2008
If it weren't for this great translation by Robert Fagels, I probably wouldn't recommend The Iliad as a book club read. Honestly? I probably wouldn't have read it myself.
Fagels' writing is so powerful—and remarkably understandable—that you find yourself enthralled, caught up in a dreamlike world of gods and mortals.
Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison, 1952
581 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
October, 2014
One of the great American coming-of-age novels, Ellison's Invisible Man is the story of a young black man struggling to find his identity in white society.
The book was an immediate standout—critics and readers loved (and still do) it's rich variety of prose styles, its humor, imagery, and symbols. Yet its portrait of America is hardly flattering. The book was one of the first fictional works, and perhaps most widely read, to focus attention on the country's virulent racism—without the consoling sentimentality of an Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Bronte, 1847
~500 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
April, 2013
Possibly no book, other than Pride and Prejudice, has been as beloved by women as Jane Eyre, a Cinderella novel if ever there was one. If you haven't read it...what have you been doing with your life? If you have read it, read it again. It's one of many classic works that gets better and better with each successive read.
On its surface, Jane Eyre is a simple romance: a young girl, brought low by circumstance and maltreated by the very institutions that should have protected her (family and school), wins the heart of a wealthy, accomplished man. At its core, however, Jane Eyre is much, much more.
The Last Tycoon (Aka The Love of the Last Tycoon)
F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1941
208 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
August, 2012
Fitzgerald died before he finished The Last Tycoon. But as critic Edmund Wilson wrote at the time, despite its unfinished and unpolished state, "it is far and away the best novel of Hollywood we have." Many think it remains so 70 years later.
Monroe Stahr, the eponymous tycoon, is a film producer at the top of the Hollywood heap. Charismatic, brilliant, and expert in every aspect of filming, Stahr has built the production system over which he rules. He is Hollywood royalty. And he falls in love.
Light in August
William Faulkner, 1932
528 pp.
August 2011
One of literature's most compulsive reads, Light in August, takes us deep into Faulkner's mythical Yoknapatawpha County and deep into the minds of his characters—divided souls all, haunted by the past and searching for a place in the present.
The novel follows three separate storylines, all linked finally by an explosion of violence at the end. Very Faulkneresque.
Little Women
Louisa May Alcott, 1868 and 1869
~500 pp. (varies by publisher)
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
January, 2013
Louisa May published her beloved classic 145 years ago, and while at times dated—its homiletic style and emphasis on female duty—Little Women still has much to say about the modern condition.
There's nothing—at all—old-fashioned about the concept of virtue: generosity and compassion, forgiveness, self-restraint, wisdom, and living with intention. These are the values that Marmee teaches her four daughters and which they come to see as the path to a good life. It's far too easy to overlook those values in the 21st century.
Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov, 1955
377 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
May 2012
Lolita has achieved iconic status as a literary masterpiece, albeit a disturbing one, highly disturbing because of its subject matter—pedophilia. What's worse is that you find yourself taking the side of—rooting for, and identifying with—a pedophile. And you even find yourself laughing because the pedophile is a wickedly funny, sophisticated narrator.
How does Nabokov do it? He uses point of view—and turns it on its head. Point of view (see our free LitCourse 7) is how authors get us to identify with certain characters—we see the book's events through their eyes, and usually they're the good guys.
Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov, 1955
317 pp.
September 2008
Lolita has achieved iconic status as a literary masterpiece, albeit a disturbing one, highly disturbing because of its subject matter—pedophilia.
What's worse is that you find yourself taking the side of—rooting for, and identifying with—a pedophile. And you even find yourself laughing because the pedophile is a wickedly funny, sophisticated narrator.
Lord of the Flies
William Golding, 1954
304 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
December, 2011
Since first published in 1954, Lord of the Flies has stood as a sort of Rorsach test. Some readers see it as a religious allegory between good and evil...others as a Freudian battle between id vs. superego...still others as a history of the rise of civilization. Finally, many see it as a commentary on the world's political institutions.
Any, in fact all, of those readings—and more—lend themselves to Golding's chilling tale of boys gone bad.
The Lord of the Rings (Complete Trilogy)
J.R.R. Tolkein, 1937-1949
432; 352; 432 pp.
Book Review by Molly Lundquist
October, 2012
It's preposterous to even attempt a review of Tolkein's classic trilogy. So I won't. What I'll do is write about my experience reading it—all three volumes.
Why I even started...
It was late at night, I couldn't sleep, and I'd run out of books. So I trotted into my daughter's room, rummaged through her bookshelves and found...tah dah!...the entire "Lord of the Rings" series. Why not, I thought. Don't like fantasy...so surely this will put me to sleep.
A Man for All Seasons
Robert Bolt, 1960
163 pp.
September 2010
When Robert Bolt's play opened 50 years ago, critics called it "dazzling"... "luminous," ... "universal." For years thereafter, the play was performed in theaters and taught in classrooms around the country. Today, it's strangely neglected. It shouldn't be.
A Man for All Seasons is the story of Thomas More—another casualty of the Tudor-Boleyn era. Despite pleadings of friends and family, even his soverign, More will not...cannot...approve Henry's divorce and remarriage. A devout churchman, he chooses principle over expediency—at the cost of his life.
Middlemarch
George Eliot, 1871-72
~800 pp. (varies by publisher)
October 2007
This is one of the great works in English literature. And like reading many such works, it's an ambitious undertaking. You'll need time and perseverance (my copy comes in at over 800 pages).
Have I scared you off? Well, you need to know what you're in for. But if you choose to read this work—and stick with it—it will enthrall you. There is good reason why Middlemarch sits at the pinnacle of the Realistic novel.
Midnight's Children
Salman Rushdie, 1981
560 pp.
November 2008
No other book in the English language is quite so decorated as Midnight's Children. It won the Booker Prize in 1981...then won the Booker of the Bookers in 1993...then the Best of the Bookers 15 years later. No other work has walked away with those awards.
Like Toni Morrison's Beloved or Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, the novel has become one of a handful of contemporary classics.
Moby-Dick
Herman Melville, 1851
500-600 pp. (varies)
May 2007
10 Reasons to Read Moby-Dick
1. It's The Great American Novel.
2. It's a terrific story.
3. It's like spinach—it's good for you.
4. It's ubiquitous—it pops up in literature, religion, politics, & psychology.
5. It's bound to be a question when you're on Jeopardy.